SAILING

T&T sailor Kelly-Ann Arrindell competes during the 2019 South American Laser Championships yesterday in Paracas, Peru.

T&T sailor Kel­ly-Ann Ar­rindell fin­ished 16th at the 2019 South Amer­i­can Laser Cham­pi­onships yes­ter­day at the Yacht Club Pe­ru­ano, Para­cas, Pe­ru, to qual­i­fy for the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Ju­ly in the same coun­try.

Sail­ing among 22 com­peti­tors in the laser ra­di­al class, Ar­rindell had a to­tal of 137 points af­ter her 10 races, fin­ish­ing with a net to­tal of 121.

Her best race was the ninth where she record­ed a score of 10. Her worst was the first race which saw her fin­ished with a score of 16 but Ar­rindell on­ly got bet­ter af­ter that.

There were 16 fe­males in the field, and the Col­lege of Charleston stu­dent fin­ished a cred­i­ble 10th among the ladies. She com­pet­ed among the likes of Ar­genti­na, Brazil, France and Mex­i­co.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day, Ar­rindell said, "This cham­pi­onship was ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult be­cause they had a lot of good sailors here, but my main goal was to qual­i­fy for the Pan Am Games, which I did."

Ar­rindell went on to say the winds pro­vid­ed a ma­jor chal­lenge for her, as she strug­gles in such con­di­tions be­cause of her weight. "I'm hop­ing to gain some weight be­fore the games so I'm able to com­pete with the big­ger and stronger girls when I'm in wind," she said.

The T&T sailor had to ac­tu­al­ly qual­i­fy this time around af­ter get­ting a wild­card in­to the last Pan Am Games in Toron­to. She is now work­ing to­wards Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion which will take place in Japan lat­er this year.

The cham­pi­onships were won by Ar­gen­tine Lu­cia Falas­ca with a score of 26 points. Brazil's Gabriel­la Kidd was sec­ond with 45 while France's Marie Bar­rue com­plet­ed the top three with 54.